Medical Kidnap Files 1-6, page 35
“What did you do to it? How did it get so big?”
Katt shrugged with the opposite shoulder.
“It just does that,” she said. “Any time I get cut or something, it leaves a big, wide scar.”
“It shouldn’t be pulling apart like that.” The nurse bit her lip, looking at it. “I’d suggest a couple of stitches to hold it closed, but I know how that turned out last time. I’ll put a couple of suture tapes across it and hope that holds.”
“Yeah, okay.”
The nurse fixed Katt’s arm up the best she could. “Maybe we should splint the other arm too, so it doesn’t tear open like this one.”
Katt pictured herself completely immobilized in casts and splints.
“Uh—no. Thanks. I think I’ll pass on that one.”
At last, they were on their way to the foster home. Katt didn’t know whether to be relieved to have left the hospital or anxious about how she was going to do at the foster home. She stared out the window at the dark sky, wondering what Karina was doing at that moment. Was she in prison, staring at a blank wall or prison bars? Was she by herself or with someone else? Another prisoner might bully her. They always joked that Katt came by her clumsiness and freak accidents naturally; Karina was not nearly as bad, but she did have her share of funny accidents and bizarre injuries. She was fragile too and Katt worried about what might happen to her while she was incarcerated.
“Do they have other kids?” she asked Brooke.
“What’s that?”
“The Foegels. Do they have other kids?”
“Yes, of course. Not their own, if that’s what you mean. They only foster. But they always have a full house. They are one of the families that can deal with more severe medical issues, so they’re always in demand.”
“Are there that many kids in foster care that have medical issues?” Katt asked, thinking about the hooded boy and his mention of medical kidnap. Taking kids away from their parents so that they could be put into research programs or foster care.
“Actually, a lot more than you would guess,” Brooke said, nodding vigorously. “I guess a lot of parents abuse or neglect their children, leading to medical issues that cause them to be removed.”
“So the other kids the Foegels have, they were abused?”
“Yes. Right.”
“How many are there?”
“I think… four others right now. They’ve had more than that before, but we try not to overload them too much. Especially when they’re dealing with kids with such high needs.”
“Are they going to have trouble taking care of me?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. I think you’ll be just fine there. You can help supervise the younger children! Lend a hand if you can.”
Katt nodded. Not agreeing that she would help, just acknowledging what Brooke had said.
“Are they far away?”
“We’re just about there.”
Katt watched out the window. Lots of suburbs. Street after street of family homes. They all blurred together after a while. Like rows of cages housing mice in a lab. Square box upon square box.
The house that they pulled up in front of was not square, it was put together like a child’s Lego set, wings and additions jutting out here and there. Katt was eager to get out and stretch her stiff legs, but as soon as she stood up and put her crutches under her armpits, she regretted it.
They had taken her to the car in a wheelchair, so Katt hadn’t yet tried walking with the crutches. Fitting them under her arms was excruciating. They caused a stretch in her ribs that burned like fire and continued to throb even when she eased the pressure. And the splinted arm and trying to avoid bending her other arm made her movements so awkward she could barely hobble along.
“Are you okay?” Brooke asked, giving her a quizzical smile.
“Uh. No. This really hurts.”
“What hurts?”
Katt moved slowly, taking tiny steps and trying not to put her weight on the crutches, just to use them to balance herself and provide a bit more stability. It was easier to walk on the cast than it was to use the crutches. Except that she was so weak and unstable.
Brooke marched past Katt and up to the door, and she and Mrs. Foegel stood in the doorway chatting while Katt made her way up the long sidewalk. Katt stopped to rest, studying Mrs. Foegel from halfway up the walk. She was a brunette. Shorter than Karina. Not so long and willowy. She had darker skin. Not ethnic, just tanned. Spending time in her garden, which Katt admired in the moonlight as she walked up the walkway, looking at her feet and the flowered border. As Katt got nearer, Mrs. Foegel looked concerned. She stepped out of the house and took a few steps toward Katt.
“Are you okay? What can I do?”
Katt shook her head. “Nothing. I can make it.”
“Are you sure? You look like you’re in a lot of pain.”
“It’s pretty bad,” Katt admitted. But she kept moving. She didn’t want to have to hang onto Mrs. Foegels’ arm. She could get there under her own power, and the woman would just be in the way if she tried to help.
But Mrs. Foegel didn’t continue to fuss at Katt. She gave Katt space and continued the conversation with Brooke.
“Follow-up care?” she was asking.
“She has a couple of prescriptions for painkillers, but she’s got enough for tonight, you don’t have to rush out and get anything. No stitches to be taken out. Have to keep an eye on the infected arm and make sure the other one doesn’t get infected too. She has oral antibiotics. Other than that, just follow up on the cast in a couple of weeks and keep an eye on any other injuries to make sure she’s healing up okay.”
“Okay.” Mrs. Foegel smiled at Katt as she made it up to the front door, where there was one step to go up, and then got her feet up and over the doorstep into the house. Katt gritted her teeth and put her weight on the crutches to get up those last two steps.
With the pain and awkwardness of using the crutches with her injuries, it was bound to happen. Katt tripped and toppled facedown in the entryway.
“Whoops! Are you okay? Let me help you,” Mrs. Foegel leaned over her and took her arm to lift her up.
Katt resisted. “Don’t pull. Just let me…”
Mrs. Foegel backed off, letting Katt get herself up. Katt carefully rolled to her side, tears running down her cheeks. She sniffled and tried not to breathe while she was finding her arms and gradually levering herself back up. Mrs. Foegel was ready to hand her one of the crutches when she got partway up. Katt was slow, but managed to get herself upright. She leaned against the wall for support.
“Your nose is bleeding,” Mrs. Foegel said. “You must have hit it.”
Katt touched her nose with the back of her wrist and confirmed the fact. “Can you get me some tissues?”
“Sure, of course. Come on over to the couch and sit down, you look ready to pass out.”
“I don’t want to bleed on it. Or the rug.”
“Don’t worry about that. I’m good at stains. Come on, please.”
Katt maneuvered herself around to the couch and lowered herself into it. She sighed, wiping at her tears with one hand before pinching her nostrils shut. Mrs. Foegel left to get tissues, leaving Katt alone with Brooke.
“Well, Mrs. Foegel will get you settled. She has my number if there’s anything you need.”
“When can I see my mom?”
Brooke blinked. “Your mom? You can’t see her.”
“Can’t I have a supervised visit? I want to see her. The other social worker at the hospital said that there would be supervised visits.”
“Right now she’s in jail. You can’t see her there—”
“They don’t allow visitors at the jail?”
“I’ll… have to look into it. I don’t know… we want you to have a chance to recover from your injuries.”
“I want to see her.”
“We’ll have to see,” Brooke said, shaking her head.
Mrs. Foegel returned with a wad of tissues. “Pinch tight and tip your head forward,” she said. “You don’t want the blood running down your throat. It should stop pretty quickly; I don’t think you broke it.”
Katt nodded.
“Are you okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
Katt was focused on stopping her nose from bleeding, but she looked up at Mrs. Foegel and saw the concern in her eyes. It probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise. In order for her to take on children with medical issues, Mrs. Foegel had to have compassion. She couldn’t just be in it for the money like some foster parents were. Though maybe she got more for more challenging cases.
Mrs. Foegel touched her lightly on the back, making small circles, her touch as light as a feather.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“Ice,” Katt suggested. “It will stop faster.”
“Of course. I’ll just be a moment.” Mrs. Foegel stood up and looked at Brooke. “Do you need anything else, or are we done?”
Brooke considered for a moment, then shrugged. “You know how to reach me if you have any more questions. Mostly, she just needs a place to recover from her injuries.”
“Sure. I’ll call you if I need anything.”
Brooke took it as her dismissal and left without even saying goodbye to Katt. Mrs. Foegel was just a couple of minutes down the hall in the kitchen, where Katt listened to her opening and closing the freezer and smashing ice into smaller pieces. She returned with a bag of crushed ice that was tucked into a light fabric packet like a pillowcase. It had penguins in ice skates on it. Katt placed it on the back of her neck and just sat there hunched over for a while. She started to hear the other noises of the house. A TV played somewhere. There was a TV in the living room, but there must have also been one in a family or playroom somewhere, or in a child’s bedroom. There were occasional voices lifted over the din of the TV. A man’s voice off to the right wing of the house. A young boy’s. The sing-song voice of a girl, babbling nonsense.
The front door opened with a bang, making Katt jump. There had been no knock or ringing doorbell to warn her. Mrs. Foegel touched Katt’s shoulder for an instant, a warm, reassuring smile on her face, and turned her eyes to the new arrival.
“Collin. How was your game?”
He grunted something that made Katt think that his team probably hadn’t won whatever game they were playing. She could hear him kicking off his shoes.
“New girl?” he observed.
“Collin, this is Katt. She just got here a few minutes ago. Katt, this is Collin, our oldest foster child.”
Katt turned her head far enough to see him out of one eye. A big guy. Halfback on his school football team, maybe. He was examining her with bright interest.
“Just got here and she’s already bleeding. Not a good sign.”
Mrs. Foegel laughed. “Well, it was quite the entrance. But it’s just a nosebleed. It will stop in a few minutes.”
Collin grunted something else, and he tramped off down one of the hallways. Katt heard him dump his sports equipment in his bedroom. He walked past again on his way to the kitchen.
“Did you want anything to eat?” Mrs. Foegel said suddenly, realizing that she hadn’t offered Katt anything.
“No. Had something at the hospital. Not feeling great.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you have any allergies I need to know about?”
“I have reflux,” Katt drew the tissues back from her nose slightly to see if it was still bleeding and to allow her to speak more clearly for a moment. “I have to be careful of spicy or acidic foods. And I need acid reducers. They didn’t give me acid reducers at the hospital. I have a prescription.”
“They didn’t give me that one. Was it prescribed by the hospital, or another doctor?”
“My old doctor.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll check with Social Services, and if it’s okay, we’ll take you to our doctor and get a new prescription.”
Katt’s nose was still bleeding. She pinched it tight again.
“Why wouldn’t it be okay?”
“A lot of the kids that they bring me are demedicalizing. Getting off of multiple prescriptions, to see which ones they really need and which ones are causing worse symptoms. I just need to make sure it’s okay for me to get you back on your old prescription.”
Katt shook her head slightly. “That’s stupid.”
“Sorry. Those are the rules we live by around here. How about something that might help settle your stomach? A piece of toast or some tea?”
“No. Thanks.”
Katt shifted the ice bag to the front of her face, just over the bridge of her nose. Usually, ice helped. If she didn’t ice, her nose might bleed for a couple of hours. But with ice, it would usually slow within twenty minutes or so. In the meantime, she had a headache, and her ribs were pounding in time with her pulse.
Eventually, her nose stopped bleeding and Mrs. Foegel took Katt to introduce her to the rest of the family. First stop was Mr. Foegels’ home office. He was taller than Mrs. Foegel, and his hair was turning gray. He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
“Katt, it’s good to meet you. I’m Matt. You can let me know if there’s anything you need, okay? I may not know my way around here quite as well as Heather, but I can usually figure something out.”
Katt nodded, smiling at him uncertainly. It was going to be weird living with a man in the house. It had always just been her and Karina. No other kids. No men. Just the two of them.
“Will you put Iris and Alvah to bed soon?” Mrs. Foegel asked him.
“Yeah, sure.” Matt was already looking down at his work and his voice was far away.
“Let me rephrase that,” Mrs. Foegel said. “I’m going to shut off the TV and tell them to get ready. I want you to make sure they’re in bed by nine.”
He nodded. “Nine,” he echoed.
But Katt wondered if he would. Heather Foegel shook her head at Katt ruefully. “We’ll see.”
Katt laughed.
They went to the darkened family room where the TV was playing. Two children lolled in beanbag chairs. They were about seven or eight years old, black, a boy and a girl.
“TV off now,” Mrs. Foegel sang out.
“No! Not yet!” protested the boy.
The girl groaned. Mrs. Foegel turned it off herself.
“Alvah, Iris, this is the new girl. This is Katt.”
They gazed at her. She could see the whites of their eyes reflecting in the dimness of the room.
“Now it’s time to get off to bed. I want you brushed and in your beds in ten minutes. Matt will come in for lights-out.”
“Heather…” the boy protested. “We’re not tired.”
“Iris is already yawning. Off you go. School day tomorrow.”
They continued to grumble and groan. Heather touched Katt’s arm and guided her back out of the room. They went down the hall and around a corner. Katt was completely turned around by the crazy additions to the house. She hoped that she wouldn’t get lost too much before she learned her way around. They went into a girls’ bedroom. There was a lamp on, but not the overhead light. Heather showed Katt first to the white crib, where a fat blond toddler was sleeping soundly.
“This is Alex,” she whispered. “I don’t know why I’m being so quiet, because nothing will wake her up once she’s out.”
They turned around, and Katt studied the other girl sitting on the bed, toys strewn around her. Maybe nine or ten, but frail-looking so she seemed younger.
“And this is Luce.”
Luce was the one who had been singing the nonsense sounds. She didn’t look at Katt or Heather, but continued to play with her toys, holding them up over her head at various angles, spinning wheels, and humming to herself.
“Luce, this is your new foster sister, Katt,” Heather said. “You know, like a kitty cat?”
“Only it’s not spelled that way,” Katt pointed out.
“No. But she won’t be reading or spelling it. I just want to give her a way to remember it.”
Katt looked at Luce doubtfully. The girl hadn’t even looked at Katt. Hadn’t acknowledged Heather’s words in any way.
“Does she talk?” Katt asked.
“No, not really. She echoes sometimes, and occasionally she’ll try to tell me something. She only uses a few words appropriately. The rest is just noise to her, I think. But we don’t know how much she really understands about what we say and the world around her. She may be taking it all in.”
Katt looked at Luce’s unfocused gaze as she manipulated the toys with long, slender fingers. It was a little creepy imagining that there might be an intellect behind those blank eyes. A real personality, recording and analyzing everything and having independent thoughts that she never shared with anyone.
“Hi, Luce,” Katt said.
The girl still didn’t look at her.
“She’ll fall asleep at some point,” Heather said. “Sometimes not until after Matt and I are in bed. But she stays put and doesn’t get into mischief. There’s an alarm on the door just in case.”
As she and Katt exited the room, Heather reached over and pushed the red button mounted outside the bedroom door, and a flashing green light went on. Heather pulled the door shut.
“Now, what do you need? You’re not hungry?”
“No.”
“Pajamas?”
Katt shook her head. “I don’t… I don’t have anything. I just went to the hospital to have my foot set, and they took me.” She couldn’t keep her voice from breaking as she explained. “I haven’t been home. I don’t have any of my stuff. Not even a toothbrush.”
“Don’t you worry about it,” Heather soothed. “I always have extra toiletries and clothing. We’ve been foster parents for a long time. It comes with the territory.”
But that wasn’t what was bothering Katt. It was hard to realize that she had nothing now. No possessions other than her phone and a couple of books and the clothes she was wearing. No home. No family. It was something else. Thinking about what they had done to her. They had just taken her, with no proof that anything was wrong. They had just exercised power and control over her life as if she didn’t have any will of her own. They just plucked her up from her life and her family and deposited her somewhere else. Like she was nothing more than an object.
